How did this thread go from whining about not being able to use a keyboard to "let's bash people with a wheel"?

I don't have to get over anything because I don't have a problem with anything. I like my sim racing as realistic as possible, unlike you. I linked to that video to show that a talented sim racer can be fast quickly in a real racing car. I assume you understand that he wouldn't be this quick if he never touched a computer and was put in this car. Remember that he doesn't have a driver's license.

I don't think Greger would beat Jackie Stewart (did I say that?). He doesn't have the physical abilities, no, but that's not the point.

I'm not whining at all. Just asked a question that's all. And I didn't bash anyone who uses a wheel in a sim, just stated that it is not representative of real life racing, which it is not. You say that guy couldn't possibly be that quick in a real racing car if it wasn't for the fact that he played sim games. Please show me evidence to back this up because it is a bold statement. Do you have an example of a guy who has never played an F1 sim doing rather OK in a single seater? I'm sure there are many. Also there have been a number of F1 drivers that have not held a full driving license.

I love racing games and I love F1 games. Currently I play F1 challenge (mostly modded) and rFactor.

Now I work full time. 40 hrs a week and have 3 kids so I don't have much time to play video games. Now imagine my dismay when I come to download a new mod for F1C or rFactor only to find that the Traction Control has been disabled. The reasons for this are clear. Traction control in F1 was not available in F1 in 2009, so they disable it in the mod for realism, the same for 1991LE. It is understandable that they want to have the same rules for everyone, but how are casual users of rFactor, who use the keyboard, supposed to play most of the mods if you can't even enable traction control?

I find it a right pain in the arse to have to dig out the wheel to play in the little time that I have to play these wonderful mods, but recently I've found some mods unplayable with the keyboard and that's not right. Is there a solution to this?

Maybe dig in the files and find out what disables it? I agree it's pretty stupid if this is the case. I've modded a bit in the past but would never think of making something that disables a core function of the game. What they should've done was base the mod on no TC obviously and let people drive how they drive. Maybe you can contact the modders about this.

Of course wheels are preferable to kb in sims, as anything that would make it more realistic. Comparing dieing/injury to if something is more realistic using closer apparatus to reality or not is far from the point, but this is not the issue here. Modders should never disable core functions of programs just to force their vision of what is good simulation. Leagues can take care of that.

As for the topic question: Some companies are more concious of what they want their sim to be. Like iRacing was built to be serious, so no kb support. rF2 will likely be very similar to rF1, wich is more like a modding toolbox/leaguesim so I'm sure everything will be possible with that.

I've done sim racing for years. Started with Live for Speed back in 2003 or so, before S1 was ever released. Moved onto Rally Trophy, GTR2, etc.

Racing sims are useful for drawing a fast line. That is the only skillset that translates from sims to REAL LIFE driving. Sims will NEVER (at least today) allow a driver to get used to:

1) G-Forces
2) True feedback (vibrations in the wheel, how light the car feels when sliding, tactile feel of the limit)
3) Fear of dying

One huge thing I've noticed is that simmers are very confident of their skills, because of how "realistic" sim racing is. Then they promptly crap their pants when they drive real cars in a performance situation. Getting past the fear of crashing is SO important to driver comfort/speed, it dictates how much a driver can push in any situation. And that is why sims will never be realistic. There is no fear of harm, so you can push as much as you want. It's when you know that the danger is there, and you push regardless that separates real drivers from simmers.

Sims will never get quite close enough to the real thing, but it's always going to be better than nothing. But there seems to be a fork in the road where you either specialise as a sim racer or a real one. Real racing drivers are a bit lost in sims, and sim specialists are equally lost in the real thing. I think mainly because while you can never drive a perfect lap in the real world, you can in a simulated one.

I agree it's better than nothing and I think it's closer to the real thing than it seems. For example I love how in an F1 game you drive a particular circuit and you realise a particular corner is really difficult to get right, and you make a particular mistake in that corner and the wonderful part is when you watch the real F1 cars at that particular circuit and you see real F1 drivers making the exact same mistake in the exact same corner. And that for me is exceptional really. I mean name another 'sim' game on the market that allows you to have that level of connection from game to reality.

Turn 8 at Turkey.. impressive to watch on TV.. but in F12010 you really learn how important it is to get the exact right line into the entry that will allow you to carry the speed and line all the way around without really lifting, and when you get it right.. it feels great. And you appreciate the corner so much more. But it's so easy to get it wrong.

I'd be interested to see an experiment where by they take someone who has played a lot of hours on an F1 sim and put them in a real F1 car and see how quickly they can get up to speed. I think the track knowledge would allow them to at least know what to expect in terms of braking etc the only variable would be how difficult or easy is it to drive a current F1 car. I'd be curious to see how quickly they could get up to speed.

Dale however has been doing it for years. What I mean is you put most professional racing drivers, and I mean proper ones, in a sim and you wouldn't believe it was them. Driving in a sim is it's own skill. Though I think the racing aspect is pretty equal. In a lot of ways I think the talent pool is better in sim racing.

Mainly money. For the cost of one Formula Ford test day, plus the licensing and safety equipment costs, you could buy a ridiculously high end computer and like a Frex wheel/pedal setup. And after that you really only have internet connection and subscription(for iRacing at least) costs.

Look at it this way. That Castrol Rankings thing that Autosport.com does, they only count 'professional' drivers. So they include DTM and WTCC guys, but not Porsche Cup. All the F3 championships, but not Formula Renault. There's about 2,000 people worldwide in the database. Let's be fair to the real racing world and say there are 10,000 actively racing people in any given year. How many people play iRacing?

A few years ago when Forza 2 came out I played it online with my friends but spent most of my time doing the time trials. For Mugello in the Ferrari 333sp, there were about 180,000 people who had set lap times. Sure only the top 500 were really realy fast and let's say 90% of the people who set laps were casual players, that's still a hell of a lot more people than actually race in the real world. By freakish amounts. So I was pleased with myself when I got to within 1 and a bit seconds of the lap record and near a 150th ranking.

I played the old NASCAR Hawaii online beta. I swear I had more fun racing that than any real race I ever did. Though when it was a dialup long distance call, it cost about as much as real racing

What? Sorry Ross, but I don't buy this. Maybe not on a race or kart track, that have nice runoffs and safety barriers. What about hillclimb and road rally where there ARE no safety barriers? Of course a professional driver isn't going to have this problem. Race tracks are quite safe.

This is about a developing driver. Most of us here are not pro drivers, and most of us don't even go to track days, time attacks, whatever. This is the mentality that a developing driver needs to take in order to get comfortable with extended periods at the limit.

You show me a driver who hasn't (at one point in his career) accepted the perpetual possibility of crashing while pushing past the point of comfort, and I'll show you a slow driver. I am not including pro drivers in this because that is their job, and they are already (hopefully) developed past this point. Even so, some still show mental cracks that can be worked on.

Edit: I should clarify that it doesn't have to be fear of death. It can be fear of crashing, fear of being slow, fear of embarrassment. Someone who has spent months saving up or and bolting on his new parts would rightly have a fear of breaking them and throwing away his money when it is a real car with real consequences. Similarly, someone who has only driven by himself might not be able to turn out the same performance when others are involved. And he is rightly unsure of his ability in relation to others.

These are all mental blocks that drivers need to get past at some point in order to get better and faster. Some, like pro drivers, get past these blocks early, with real life seat time (and mental maturity). Others, driving enthusiasts like you and I, may not have the resources to dedicate to a racing lifestyle. But we try anyway, so the seat time to get past these mental blocks could come much later for us. And then you have those that are into cars, but are wary for one reason or another of stepping into a real one and driving it to HIS limit (not the car's limit). These are all very real, and you get around these through exposure, and eventual comfort with the exposure. My buddy drove in Indy Lights and has tested NASCAR stock cars, and he is NOT comfortable with the rear end sliding for extended periods like in a drift car. Not to say that he couldn't control it, but it's not something he is used to.

A few years ago when Forza 2 came out I played it online with my friends but spent most of my time doing the time trials. For Mugello in the Ferrari 333sp, there were about 180,000 people who had set lap times. Sure only the top 500 were really realy fast and let's say 90% of the people who set laps were casual players, that's still a hell of a lot more people than actually race in the real world. By freakish amounts. So I was pleased with myself when I got to within 1 and a bit seconds of the lap record and near a 150th ranking.

To me, in that respect, it's quite simple. I never tried to be "the best racer car driver" when simracing. I tried to be the best SIMRACER in that particular race. That, after all, is in reality what you're trying to be. In a real car, it's a different skill set.

Tried to tackle it like a real racer would, though - and that's by using your noggin and try to finish the race first and foremost, not like most amateurs do who arrive, overdrive and fly off within a couple of laps. (Won quite a few dozen online races in GPL that way - only going fast when it was needed, no more). That's another thing, apart from learning the track, that did translate from real life to sims.

And yes, Greger's drive proved that sim race talent *does* point to some talent in real racing cars - and as for real drivers in sims: apart from Dale E., there's always old Emmo Fittipaldi, the world's biggest race fan. Because after being Indy and F1 World champion several times, and having nothing to prove whatsoever, in the wee hours in the morning he came back to a factory once, got in the sim rig they got there and did some simracing in GPL - because he liked it. That, to me, is love of the sport, whether it's real or virtual.

What? Sorry Ross, but I don't buy this. Maybe not on a race or kart track, that have nice runoffs and safety barriers. What about hillclimb and road rally where there ARE no safety barriers? Of course a professional driver isn't going to have this problem. Race tracks are quite safe.

This is about a developing driver. Most of us here are not pro drivers, and most of us don't even go to track days, time attacks, whatever. This is the mentality that a developing driver needs to take in order to get comfortable with extended periods at the limit.

You show me a driver who hasn't (at one point in his career) accepted the perpetual possibility of crashing while pushing past the point of comfort, and I'll show you a slow driver. I am not including pro drivers in this because that is their job, and they are already (hopefully) developed past this point. Even so, some still show mental cracks that can be worked on.

Edit: I should clarify that it doesn't have to be fear of death. It can be fear of crashing, fear of being slow, fear of embarrassment. Someone who has spent months saving up or and bolting on his new parts would rightly have a fear of breaking them and throwing away his money when it is a real car with real consequences. Similarly, someone who has only driven by himself might not be able to turn out the same performance when others are involved. And he is rightly unsure of his ability in relation to others.

These are all mental blocks that drivers need to get past at some point in order to get better and faster. Some, like pro drivers, get past these blocks early, with real life seat time (and mental maturity). Others, driving enthusiasts like you and I, may not have the resources to dedicate to a racing lifestyle. But we try anyway, so the seat time to get past these mental blocks could come much later for us. And then you have those that are into cars, but are wary for one reason or another of stepping into a real one and driving it to HIS limit (not the car's limit). These are all very real, and you get around these through exposure, and eventual comfort with the exposure. My buddy drove in Indy Lights and has tested NASCAR stock cars, and he is NOT comfortable with the rear end sliding for extended periods like in a drift car. Not to say that he couldn't control it, but it's not something he is used to.

I think fear of crashing, rather than fear of driving, is the real impediment. In real life, crashing the car is a big setback for your career until you make it fairly high up in the ladder.

What? Sorry Ross, but I don't buy this. Maybe not on a race or kart track, that have nice runoffs and safety barriers. What about hillclimb and road rally where there ARE no safety barriers? Of course a professional driver isn't going to have this problem. Race tracks are quite safe.

Well, Ross does have some experience in crashing (and showing no fear) after the people on this forum got him a drive in a Formula Palmer Audi race, back in the days:

Had a massive massive crash in final qualifying in a really fast sweeper. I ****ed my turn in and got dirt all over my tires as iwas running wide and mid-way through the corner the turn tightens and goes off-slope so my car couldnt take it and I snap spun and backed straight into the wall. I *destroyed* the tire wall. Just like F1 i threw the wheel out, vaulted the fence and spritned for the pits. I stopped after about 200feet when i realised there was no spare car

Race 2 I was okay, I got a bunch of guys in turn 1. At the start of lap 2, approaching turn 1 at 140mph I confused my foot work (I left foot brake some corners, right foot the other). At any rate I put the clutch in instead of applying the brakes and I went flying off the road at like a 45 degree angle at full bore into a turnip field. I practically made it to the highway that parallel's the circuit. Based on my digital display, I spent a minimum of 34seconds traversing the turnip field. I was so far out I couldnt see the track anymore and had to look around for fans and marshall posts. The clerk of the course said I was one of the farthest explorers ever into the turn 1 field ;)

That's actually a good example of the hestitation you have to deal with in the junior ranks if you're on a really tight budget. The first crash Audi paid for because my insurance coverage came out of the budget. Once I had used that up, I had to refill the downpayment (about £1,000) out of my own money. And given I had about £10 in my pocket at the time, that meant calling home from the pitlane on a borrowed mobile to ask my dad if he could garuntee the money. And I promised I wouldn't crash again. Given that it as about 5am on a Sunday where he was, he was very understanding.

After that I managed to hit things (ie Natalie Butler) without damaging the car, but I had a slightly different mindset after the qualifying crash. But even with a bottomless budget I may have been more careful, as it was a big effort to get the car fixed in time for the first qualifying anways, and I had to do two races that day. So any more than bodywork damage in the first race could have put me in trouble.

Ie see Sebastien Bourdais this past weekend in the IndyCar race. Had a big hit in the morning warmup and he didn't start the race because they couldn't fix it in time. I think because he damaged the monocoque.

I would say concern about crashing probably comes more from whether you are paying the costs yourself, rather than how much you have to spend. Id be a lot more nervous about spending £100 of my own money than £10,000 of someone else's.

But is there fear for getting hurt? I never thought drivers would feel that.

I've had a big shunt in a recreational kart once and it left me bruised, but I never felt fear, before or after. I always thought fear and going fast don't match, especially of you watch some WRC rally drivers.

I don't think anyone's scared of getting hurt. Otherwise how could you drive? My very very first crash in a race car was scary. Because I spun on the exit of the kink at Road America and went into the inside wall backwards. But I'd never been in any kind of accident before, even in a road car. I'd never even fallen off a bicycle or anything. But as soon as it was over I thought "Oh, that wasn't so bad". You feel like an idiot when you crash, not scared.

About dying in a sim. What has happened to me is that I raced at Monza in GP94... spun. Cursed myself, put the car straight, raced away... and crashed head on against another car. I was facing the wrong way around. I swear, if I had been a heartpatient I would have had serious trouble!

I remember Jeremy clarkson testing GT4 at Laguna Seca in a Honda NSX and then doing it in real life. He was about 15 secs slower but in a newspaper coloumn shortly afterwards he said GT4 was very close to real life and with accidents it would only be more real if a giant spike came through the TV when you crashed (and it would be nice if GT4 had damage too)

I remember Jeremy clarkson testing GT4 at Laguna Seca in a Honda NSX and then doing it in real life. He was about 15 secs slower but in a newspaper coloumn shortly afterwards he said GT4 was very close to real life and with accidents it would only be more real if a giant spike came through the TV when you crashed (and it would be nice if GT4 had damage too)

Yes, well, that item was rather flawed. Partly to blame on insufficient journalistic research (by his team or himself).

He drove the 'default' Type 2 tyres in GT4, which are basically low-end race (semi-)slicks, not normal street tyres. You won't find these on the real cars unless converted to racers. For street cars, Polyphony basically stuck fantasy tyres on by default. Had he driven the much less grippy lower-end "Type 1" street tyres in the game (which *do* resemble normal street tyres a lot more), his virtual times would have been nowhere near as fast.

In other words, he drove the wrong tyres in the game, so his game times ended up way lower than his real life times - no wonder he couldn't get close in real life. With a bit better preparation, that item on TG would've ended up a lot better. (Not that he'd be able to reach his 'game' times entirely, though. GT4 is not a sim anyway.)

Yes, I remember watching that episode, and the GT4 car certainly seemed to act in ways a normal street car wouldn't. Also, if Jeremy Clark really was that horribly off the pace and the sim time was accurate, then I'm sure that they would show a real racing driver blow his time away in the real car. Of course, one shouldn't expect scientific comparison from Top Gear, most of it is set up for laughs.

I also think that they set up the follow-up episode, where Jackie Stewart promised to make anyone 20 seconds quicker. I have a very hard time believing that even James May would be 20 second off the pace on a 2-minute lap before receiving instruction. Once you can stay on the track consistently, that's just an unfathomable gap.

Yes, I remember watching that episode, and the GT4 car certainly seemed to act in ways a normal street car wouldn't. Also, if Jeremy Clark really was that horribly off the pace and the sim time was accurate, then I'm sure that they would show a real racing driver blow his time away in the real car. Of course, one shouldn't expect scientific comparison from Top Gear, most of it is set up for laughs.

I also think that they set up the follow-up episode, where Jackie Stewart promised to make anyone 20 seconds quicker. I have a very hard time believing that even James May would be 20 second off the pace on a 2-minute lap before receiving instruction. Once you can stay on the track consistently, that's just an unfathomable gap.

I don't know... depends on the track. Where was it? It looked short and twisty. I am sure that if I would run a Mini at Monaco, I would be 30 seconds slower than Stewart...

Oh, totally. When people are starting out the biggest thing to get used to is just the rate of information you now have to deal with. Trundling along at half throttle in third gear feels like you're going down the Mulsanne in a Group C car.

I also think that they set up the follow-up episode, where Jackie Stewart promised to make anyone 20 seconds quicker. I have a very hard time believing that even James May would be 20 second off the pace on a 2-minute lap before receiving instruction. Once you can stay on the track consistently, that's just an unfathomable gap.

THB I think that if James is really the slowest of them he was in fact the best candidate for the challenge. It was easier to cut off 20 seconds from a guy who is not pushing to his limits.

I agree that James May was the best candidate for this. However, none of the three presenters are exactly amateurs to driving cars fast. They may not be race-car drivers, but they have the basics. The basics are more than enough to be within 20 seconds.

I love racing games and I love F1 games. Currently I play F1 challenge (mostly modded) and rFactor.

Now I work full time. 40 hrs a week and have 3 kids so I don't have much time to play video games. Now imagine my dismay when I come to download a new mod for F1C or rFactor only to find that the Traction Control has been disabled. The reasons for this are clear. Traction control in F1 was not available in F1 in 2009, so they disable it in the mod for realism, the same for 1991LE. It is understandable that they want to have the same rules for everyone, but how are casual users of rFactor, who use the keyboard, supposed to play most of the mods if you can't even enable traction control?

I find it a right pain in the arse to have to dig out the wheel to play in the little time that I have to play these wonderful mods, but recently I've found some mods unplayable with the keyboard and that's not right. Is there a solution to this?

Long thread, so I guess your question has been answered many-o-times already. Id not: It is about fairness. If you invest in equipment and time to tame the beasts you do not want to be beaten in the race by someone that have his computer doing most of the driving. There is plenty of series and mods where people can use whatever aids they want, so I do not think it is ok to complain when someone makes a mod aimed towards the real nerds.

Well I'm hopeless on anything bar a motorbike in real life and hopeless at most sims. I'd have to say a sim is far harder to feel an initial mastery of simply because you can't feel the movement with your whole body, the vehicle becomes an extension of you while the pixels on the screen never give that sense unless you have some hyper-real rig. Personally I am much faster reacting to a slight feeling from the road (uh, touch?) than a visual cue.

I have to say I think the OP has a point. When you need to go out and buy a wheel just to play a game then maybe they are going a bit too far. The last racing game I played and enjoyed was GTR Evolution which was the sequal to race 07. I could play that on a keyboard and do very well.

I miss the old Indycar game where I could pick it up and go and just play it with a keyboard.

I realise the sim market is after a different sort of player but are there any decent pick up and go type racing games out there where I don't have to spend all day playing just to be good ?

Yes of course, they're called "arcade games" and there's plenty of them around. Just pick up any type of Need for Speed type game.

In sims, though, it's a bit more difficult. None of them are really suited for keyboard (because normally, they will put driving aids on by default if you drive with keys). Personally, I do drive casually and (as noted earlier in this thread) I use gamepad analog thumbsticks as a compromise (no aids, AI in rFactor set to 100%).
There' s a usb gamepad on the side of my Mac if I want to fire up a pc sim and drive low-horsepower cars for a few short 3-lap races that way. I just pick it up and go race (don't even have to reboot into Windows).

That's doable. But it's "casual-only"; if you're getting serious about racing online or high-horsepower cars it's pretty hopeless, in sims you really need a wheel for that kind of thing. But if you focus on small cars like Vees, Minis or FFords and stick to short & casual, it can be boatloads of fun.
In other words: there is some room for compromise, even in sims, but it's not big; so you'll have to 'customize' your way of virtual driving to suit your needs.

I cannot fathom why anybody in this age would want to play a PC racing sim game with just four digital inputs. It makes no sense at all to me. A bit like playing an ultra realist flight sim with an old Quickshot 2 joystick.

An analogue gamepad is your best bet. The Xbox style ones are good but will cost a lot of money, I found my one in the Bargin Bin at Maplins i think.

Thanks for the link to the short film, whoever it was. It was pretty interesting. My impression was that he knew the track like the back of his hand, and was confident in the braking zones but just wasn't prepared for the physical experience and it overwhelmed him after a few laps.

Might post this in the rfactor thread if no one comes back to me here.

I installed this again and am playing this on my PC with the Clio Cup Mod. Very good mod and as stated with less power I can play it ok and am doing ok at the moment. The mod is great but I now want to play a version of the British Championship. Is there anyway to download all the tracks for that all in one go, it seems a lot of mods are either tracks or cars not both together.

Going to try Formula Vee later, are there any others that would work well for me ?

I did try the WSC70 mod but that is impossible with the 917 not tried the lower class 911 in that mod yet

I have played GPL with an analogue joypad and it is still rock hard. These joypads are ok for slower cars like non open wheelers where you might have to sharply correct some sudden oversteer but they are not so good for GPL type cars with rear wheels almost constantly spinning and having to be very progressive with the sticks.

I still play GP2 which is almost 20 years old. I like the fact that the steering help is on so I can concentrate on what matters: braking and car positioning during overtakes.

As for sim racing and real life skills. I have no driving license, I am over 30 years old. But I have probably 5,000 hours playing experience of GP2/GP4. Add maybe 500 hours of playing games without steering assist such as Gran Turismo/GPL/rfactor.

My company had a karting event once with over 30 entrants. 3 heats determined the grid for the final race. Bear in mind I am a hefty 80+ kilos. I won my heat easily and thought I had won the entire event, such that I gave my all and could barely climb out of the kart. For the final I was on pole and lead most of the race and finished second.

We should remember that racing is not just about pure speed. It's also about knowing how to manage a race, making the right decisions such as when to overtake others/lap backmarkers etc. I would like to have seen Gregor in a race with others rather than just boring practice laps. I'd bet that his experience of thousands of different racing scenarios (as I have) would see him easily trounce others, especially in longer races.

We should remember that racing is not just about pure speed. It's also about knowing how to manage a race, making the right decisions such as when to overtake others/lap backmarkers etc. I would like to have seen Gregor in a race with others rather than just boring practice laps. I'd bet that his experience of thousands of different racing scenarios (as I have) would see him easily trounce others, especially in longer races.

This is true when the speed is already there. Knowledge and strategy can win you some things, but they need to be implemented with control on the absolute limit to be the most effective.

I take all sims with a pinch of salt physics wise. However, it is a challenge i like. Learning to drive a type of car, tweaking the setup to suit my style, managing tyres, fuel, traffic, strategy, keeping out of trouble are all things you can glean useful knowledge from using racing sims.

In online endurance races, i have seldom qualified on the front row (of class) but usually come to the fore by the halfway stage and quite often have alot of success. Just downloaded the latest Service Pack of the Enduracers mod for rfactor. The LMPC cars are a treat, very user friendly.

A sim attempts to mimic the real thing, but it isn't the real thing aka a simulation.
The value of sims are their precision with decent racing wheels and the unique challenge they represent.
Driving skill is something anyone can learn, there's just a big learning curve to get past.

Being serious is the point of racing simulators. There is a lot of other racing games that are not real simulators and thus aren't that serious (but still fun to play)

My good Sir, let's not put off our console buddies, for example, should one own a G25/27, a racing sim is still fun to drive because of the precision and FFB.rf2 is an example of a sim that has tremendous FFB and so you could still enjoy driving off the pace because of that.

Well I'm hopeless on anything bar a motorbike in real life and hopeless at most sims. I'd have to say a sim is far harder to feel an initial mastery of simply because you can't feel the movement with your whole body, the vehicle becomes an extension of you while the pixels on the screen never give that sense unless you have some hyper-real rig. Personally I am much faster reacting to a slight feeling from the road (uh, touch?) than a visual cue.

Have you read about how to drive a race car or race sim?.....there are definite techniques that you must employ, and it will still take practice, but good technique is the sole reason why anyone goes fast and stays on track in sim racing.